Sunday Stories: “Storage Unit”

door handle

Storage Unit
by Emily Grandy

It was a damp day in December and Roger’s mother had been dead six weeks when a call came in from an unfamiliar assortment of digits. He’d been turning into the empty parking lot of the shopping strip, thinking about buying salt for the walks, when his phone rang. Normally, he would reject any unknown number outright, but the 440-area code—one he knew well, that of his boyhood, and of his recently deceased mother—gave him pause. It was less curiosity than suspicion that prompted Roger to answer the unexpected summons.

Continue Reading

Sunday Stories: “Good Boy”

Dog mosaic

Good Boy
by Charles Holdefer

I don’t always listen to my dog because he can be a whiner but last night we were talking about the possibilities of afterlife and accounts of near-death experiences where someone travels down a tunnel toward a bright light which opens onto joy and sometimes a reunification with lost loved ones.

Continue Reading

Sunday Stories: “We Ate Standing Up”

Airport interior

We Ate Standing Up
by Angela Edward

I landed at JFK at night, around 10:30 p.m., already unsure. Baggage claim moved slowly. I stood watching the carousel loop again and again, the same suitcases circling back like a bad joke. When mine finally came, I lifted it off the belt and felt how heavy it was. We did not talk much. I could feel him watching me, waiting for something I could not name.

Continue Reading

Sunday Stories: “After You”

Mirror

After You
by Alex Treuber

I was nineteen years old when I started following people. The first was a young man holding a bouquet of flowers with tears running down his cheeks. I followed him down to the docks and watched from afar as he ripped the heads from their stems and tossed them into the current where they floated away like paper sailboats. As he wailed into the gray wind I felt something inside me settle into place, an overwhelming sense of warmth and solace, and that night I dreamed I was walking down the aisle in a great white wedding gown made of roses.

Continue Reading